Shocked Mexico Mourns Prelate Slain in Shootout

By ANTHONY DePALMA,

Published: May 26, 1993

GUADALAJARA, Mexico, May 25—
All through the day, long lines of mourners encircled the old Metropolitan Cathedral in the center of this city, waiting for as long as three hours to glimpse the polished wooden coffin of Juan Jesus Cardinal Posadas Ocampo.

The Cardinal was killed in a shootout at the airport here on Monday in what officials said tonight was a battle between rival groups of drug traffickers in which the the Cardinal "was mistaken for one of them."

Mourners recited the rosary and shaded their heads from the burning sun with copies of a local newspaper whose headline screamed "Justice," an expression of the disbelief and indignation felt throughout Mexico at the killing of the country's second-highest Roman Catholic leader and six others just outside the airport waiting room.

Local and state officials are holding two men, and have identified one by name, but they have not been formally charged. The parents of the identified man, Victor Escobar, who was said to have lived in San Franscisco for the last three years, said he was an innocent bystander being set up by the authorities.

Information still is sketchy, and there seems to be confusion about whether this should be a federal or state investigation, or some combination of both.

But the assistant attorney general for Jalisco state, Leobardo Larrios Guzman, said at a news conference tonight that two members of rival drug gangs had been seen in the airport before the shooting, and it appeared that after a gunfight broke out in the parking lot outside the airport, Cardinal Posadas Ocampo "was mistaken for one of them."

There have been reports that two victims may have been involved in drug trafficking. One was found with 100,000 pesos -- about $35,000 -- and a packet containing a white substance that appeared to be cocaine, and the other was carrying a metal police badge that officials said could mean that he was once a member of the federal police or that he had been given a sort of courtesy card commonly carried by drug traffickers.

Mourners, sometimes tearful, often just curious, began filing past the Cardinal's open coffin soon after it arrived around midnight. Cardinal Posadas Ocampo was the Archbishop of Guadalajara and the cathedral was his church.

The Cardinal's body was draped in gold robes. A rosary was in his hands and a large crucifix on a chain around his neck. A Frightening Event

Lorenzo Mendieta, a 20-year-old from Guadalajara who is unemployed, said that what had happened to the Cardinal had frightened him because "it means that the same thing could happen to any of us."

News of the shooting shocked and outraged a nation already reeling from several drug-rleated shootings and a growing sense that the drug cartels are gaining control of the nation.

Church leaders, Mexican officials and thousands of mourning Catholics reacted with shock and indignation that a prince of the church could be slain in the normal course of his duties, sending a message to other Mexicans that they are are just as vulnerable to drug-related violence.

In his address Monday night after arriving in Guadalajara to take part in the Cardinal's funeral, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari called the shootings "a criminal act" that merited "the unanimous rejection of the nation."

"The people of Mexico, as one, have to put violence aside," he said.

At Miguel Hidalgo International Airport, which was closed for three hours after the shooting, most of the evidence of the violence had been swept away today and the airport was running normally.

But a few of the glass doors into Section C of the waiting lobby were shattered, as was a taxi booth outside. Travelers pointed to a quarter-inch-thick steel roof support that had been pierced by one of the bullets.

And in the parking area where the Cardinal's white 1993 Grand Marquis had been parked when it was struck by almost 30 shots -- more than 10 hit the Cardinal, mostly in the upper chest -- the asphalt was marked with gray circles and arrows to show where the dead had fallen.

The details remain confused, but what is known is that the Cardinal arrived at airport to pick up the Papal Nuncio at around 3:45. Just after his driver, Pedro Perez, pulled the Cardinal's car into a parking lot across a road from the terminal, several men armed with what witnesses said were automatic rifles sprayed the area with bullets that ripped through cars, shattered glass and killed seven people, including an elderly woman and her nephew.

On Mexican television on Monday night the body of the Cardinal was shown in the front seat of the car, slumped slightly to his left, his robes and gold crucifix clearly visible. Guns on Two Bodies

The other dead people were either standing in the waiting area or near the parked cars. One was reportedly found holding a cellular phone.

The police said two dead men, not yet identified, had guns. They also reported that grenades and other weapons were found in vehicles nearby.

Tonight the governor of Jalisco, Carlos Rivera Aceves, called on President Salinas to send federal troops who patrol the highways leading into the state to prevent illegal activity.

Photo: Bishop Carlos Quintero Arce praying at the coffin of Juan Jesus Cardinal Posadas Ocampo in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Guadalajara, Mexico. The Cardinal and six other people were killed in a shootout at an airport on Monday in what officials said was drug-related violence. (Associated Press)